The Titan Probe

By: Brandon Q. Morris

Narrated by: Doug Tisdale Jr.

Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

In 2005, the robotic probe "Huygens" lands on Saturn's moon Titan. 40 years later, a radio telescope receives signals from the far away moon that can only come from the long forgotten lander.

At the same time, an expedition returns from neighbouring moon Enceladus. The crew lands on Titan and finds a dangerous secret that risks their return to Earth. Meanwhile, on Enceladus a deathly race has started that nobody thought was possible. And its outcome can only be decided by the astronauts that are stuck on Titan.

©2018 Brandon Q. Morris (P)2019 Brandon Q. Morris

Interesting book, odd execution

Fun story interesting idea. Odd execution in that the author did not use contractions. The reader/performer seems to accentuate this, and actually adds little cheerful lilts sometimes on to serious passages. Perhaps some of this is on purpose? I am left scratching my head and wondering. I realize this was likely translated from German. But editors should be solving these problems for the author. Over all the text is reminiscent of lines from a godzilla movie or any movie Native American character played by Lou Diamond Phillip's. All said, this is still an interesting story. And in a genre with too much magic and superman heroes wielding swords and blasters, this is some fun and plausible actual science fiction.

The Enceladus Mission series

This review addresses the entire series of The Enceladus Mission, which consists of four full-length novels: The Enceladus Mission, The Titan Probe, The Io Encounter, and Return to Enceladus. Read in sequence as most characters traverse all four books, as does the story.

Plot. A group of astronauts from several countries responds to a probe signal coming from the moon of a distant planet indicating potential life. Through the four novels, space travel is defined in painfully intricate detail. The entire series consists of a series of mundane problems, occasionally life-threatening, that arise with regularity - one after another. Expected relationships between characters develop, including a pregnancy. Shipboard AI's misbehave, save the day, stuff goes wrong, stuff gets fixed, etc.

Liked. The Enceladus Mission series is pure SciFi. The "what-if" possibilities are there, which in my opinion, makes the best SciFi. No drooling zombies, aliens with clicking knees, jump scares. No sex, no gratuitous profanity. Coincidently? Breakthrough Enceladus is a proposed privately funded astrobiology mission to look for macrobiotic life in the volcanic eruptions of water emanating from the moon - true - Google it.

Not so hot. Wording isn't particularly smooth - no contractions; more effort should have been applied to story rather than space technology, which can be boring to some readers. The ending left much unanswered.

Written by Brandon Q. Morris, narrated by Doug Tisdale Jr., each book in the area of eight hours of listening, all books released 2019.

Recommended to the nerds among us; lots of techy stuff to pick apart.

Good, hard science fiction.

This is a very good science fiction book. It kept me involved to the end - and beyond. I've started the next book on the series.

Good but with flaws

The story, when the author actually gets around to telling it instead of concentrating on the introspective thoughts and musings of the characters is interesting. The nasally voice of the narrator gets on my nerves, especially the way he rushes through every sentence making them sound like they should be a fragments. Then you have the author's attention to detail, endless detail, how every character looks, what they feel from seen to seen, what they see and what they feel and think about what they seeing. There is a lot of fluff. The way every single thing in the book is described in painstaking detail you would think this was a script for a movie that requires long, flowery descriptions to easily translate into the visual medium. The punctuation and tenor makes every character seem like they are recording an official report: MM/D/YYYY At X time I got up. I walked over and looked out the window. I got something to eat. I put on my suit. I walked outside. I was not concerned. MM/DD/YYYYY X/Time I looked down at my shoe. I thought this and then thought back to my childhood and my abusive father. I looked at the lake. I decided to test the lake composition by sticking my hand into the lake to see if it was cold. On and on and on. It gets old fast. Also there are no contractions used. Everything it cold and 'proper' English. Instead of I'm or You've or Shouldn't it is I am, You have, I should not, etc.

Good back story but started to drag a bit

It was good to understand the backstory, but was out of order according to the description of the books.

More of the same but not in a good way

Hard science is great until it becomes dull science. The story, for the most part, is obvious and boring. I’m stopping the series here.